


this is the start (of how it all ever ends)

by seekrest



Series: Home for the Holidays [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: (when don’t I let’s be honest), Angst with a Happy Ending, Electrocution, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, I put the boys through it in this one, Kidnapping, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28028538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekrest/pseuds/seekrest
Summary: “Peter, I need you to listen to me,” Tony says, almost pleading. “It’s not real okay? It’s not real.”Peter frowns, working to move his lips to try and ask what Tony’s meaning only for his blood to turn cold when he hears it - a cry that strikes fear straight into his gut.“PETER!”
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Home for the Holidays [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2042758
Comments: 27
Kudos: 167





	this is the start (of how it all ever ends)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blondsak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blondsak/gifts).



“Pete.”

Peter groans at the sound, his head feeling like there’s a weight attached to it. He lifts it up only to wince from the movement, a throbbing pain emanating from all sides as he tries to open his eyes.

He blinks a few times, the dull ache behind his eyes making it that much more difficult for his vision to focus. When he finally does, he sees Tony across from him - the barely contained panic written all over his face smoothing out in unexplainable relief when Peter locks eyes with him.

“Hey kid, you with me?” Tony asks. Peter’s mouth feels dry and his tongue feels heavy, furrowing his eyebrows as a response.

Tony nods as if Peter actually responded as he says, “You been in and out of it for a while but don’t worry. It’s gonna be okay. You’re okay and everyone’s safe.” 

It’s then that Peter finally focuses on the situation, blinking a few times and noticing Tony’s arms and hands bound together by some kind of metal. Peter himself tries to move, wincing as he drifts his head down and looks that he’s also bound. He tugs helplessly at the restraints, confusion flowing through him at why he can’t, just as much as the pain does from whatever is clearly running through his system when Tony speaks. 

“Vibranium,” he says, Peter sluggishly looking back at him and seeing the worry in his eyes. “It’s vibranium so you can’t break out of it.”

Tony’s expression shifts just then, Peter frowning as Tony leans forward and says, “Listen to me, Pete. It’s not real, okay? You’re safe. Everyone’s safe.”

“Wha--” Peter finally says before he starts to cough, the movement causing his chest to jostle against the restraint across his chest and his arms. It’s painful, Peter looking down and trying to make sense of it for why his chest feels like he can’t catch his breath. 

There’s blood everywhere— across his lap, his chest and all along his wrists, bruising just barely peeking out from where the vibranium is. Fuzzy memories of struggling against the restraints come back to him but it doesn’t explain the blood or the throbbing ache Peter feels in the back of his mind, slowly looking back up to Tony and seeing the unadulterated fear in his eyes. 

“Peter, I need you to listen to me,” Tony says, almost pleading. “It’s not real okay? It’s not real.” 

Peter frowns, working to move his lips to try and ask what Tony’s meaning only for his blood to turn cold when he hears it - a cry that strikes fear straight into his gut. 

“PETER!” 

_May_ , Peter immediately thinks - eyes widening as he frantically looks around. He immediately regrets it for the pain that it causes, struggling under the weight of the vibranium cuffs around his arm. 

“PETER PLEASE! PETER! PETER HELP!” May calls out again, only for an agonizing cry to echo out over the room they’re in.

Peter struggles in vain against the restraints, frantically looking around to where the sound could be coming from as his vision starts to grow cloudy. He can hear Tony still in the distance but there’s something that’s preventing him from focusing, his mind too warped to settle on anything else but the piercing screams of the person he loves most in the world sounding as if she was in unimaginable pain. 

He gasps, desperately trying to wrench himself from where he is when he sees Tony again - the fear in his expression doing nothing to calm Peter as Tony’s mouth moves, only barely registering that he’s speaking.

“--not real. It’s not real, Peter. Look at me. Look at me, she’s--”

May screams again, Peter glancing up to the sound to try and find her. Yet as soon as he does it, his senses start screaming at him just seconds before Peter’s struck with a white-hot and blinding pain of his own - a buzzing that drowns out all over his senses as his insides feel like they’re burning from the inside out. 

May screams are drowned out by his own until Peter feels nothing at all. 

* * *

Tony watches helplessly as Peter seizes against the chair, eyes rolling to the back of his head before his body slumps backwards. It’s grisly and horrifying yet Tony can’t bring himself to pull away as blood pours from Peter’s mouth, his body boneless and limp in the chair across from him.

Yet Tony can’t help but feel some small semblance of relief that Peter’s out so quickly, if only so that it gives him that much more time to try and figure out a way out of his hell hole - pushing away the thought of how long it would be that Peter could continue to hang on. 

Peter wasn’t even supposed to be here, coming with Tony to get a Christmas tree on a whim. If Tony had been a little less selfish and insecure, he wouldn’t have taken Peter up on his offer to come with him to pick up the tree - would’ve forced him to stay at the cabin, safely with May, Pepper and Morgan, teaching Morgan how to play dreidel. 

But Tony had craved the alone time, time he didn’t get as often as he would’ve liked now with Peter in college in the city. 

Tony had relished the chance to hang out with Peter like it was old times as Peter filled in all the details about his life at ESU since the last time they caught up. 

Yet even that proved to Tony that it was different than it had been even after the Blip, his stories now revolving more than Ned and what LEGO he was working on but of plans to move out of the crappy dorms into a crappier apartment with MJ or his latest misadventure with that idiot Johnny Storm.

Tony would give anything to hear another story about Johnny or his classes or anything at all if it meant that Peter wasn’t subjected to the nightmare that’s in front of him, Tony wrestling against his own restraints as he looks around.

“Hey assholes! You’ve had your fun! Let us go and I _might_ consider letting you all live,” Tony yells out, only to be met yet again with a frustrating silence. They hadn’t even made it to the Christmas tree farm, Tony’s last memory before the crash being Peter stopping in mid-sentence - bracing a hand over Tony as the van slammed into them. 

When Tony woke up, he was bound by the same restraints that Peter was in - their kidnappers clearly being aware of who they were and more frustratingly who _Peter_ was. 

The vibranium, the drugs coursing through Peter’s system, the manufactured cries of people he knew - Tony couldn’t help but think that he was almost a secondary target in all of this, an afterthought in whatever scheme or problem that their kidnapper had planned. Yet there was something personal in this too, Tony being situated as he was and bound by the same restraints yet without being under the influence.

As if their kidnappers knew that the worst thing they could do would be to put him in a position where Tony had to watch someone he loves be in unimaginable pain and yet be powerless to stop it.

There’s only one person that comes to mind, only one who could be so sadistic and cruel— someone who has been a ghost in the background that Tony had hoped Peter would never face again. 

Before Tony gets the chance to think more about their situation or how the hell to get out of it, his stomach drops when he sees Peter start to stir again. The time in between the drug induced haze, the frantic screaming of a voice Tony knows isn’t there, and the electrocution that twists up _Tony’s_ insides is a cycle he wasn’t eager to start again, much less with the knowledge that the quicker that they repeat it - the more likely it is that even Peter’s super-healing wouldn’t be able to save him. 

_Come on kid,_ Tony thinks to himself as Peter groans again, lolling his head to the side as Tony shifts.

“Hey kid, you’re okay. Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re okay,” Tony says, knowing by now that the window of opportunity that he has to explain was already closing. It was a timer that started as soon as Peter seemed a bit more conscious, struggling against his restraints as he did time and time again. Whatever drugs are flowing through his system have to be messing with his memory, swallowing down bile at Peter restlessly shifting in his seat. 

“Pete, I need you to listen to me okay? It’s not real. Whatever you’re gonna hear, _whoever_ you’re gonna hear, they’re fine. They’re safe. It’s not real, you hear me?” Tony says in a rush, hoping that Peter even caught half of what he’s saying. 

The unfocused stare and slow blinking only causes Tony’s stomach to churn, compounded with the blood that’s now starting to drip from his nose. 

“Peter? You with me, kid?” Tony asks, Peter blinking a few times before his eyebrows furrow.

“T’ny?” Peter asks only for another ear-shattering scream to call out over the warehouse that they’re in, Peter’s eyes widening in fear as it calls out to him.

“PETER! PETER WHERE ARE YOU? PETER!” Tony hears ‘MJ’s’ voice cry out, Peter’s hands struggling against his restraints once again. If Peter had all his senses about him, if it wasn’t for the damned drugs in his system - Tony knows that Peter would be able to put two and two together. 

Peter would know that there’s no chance that May, MJ, Ned and a few other voices that Tony can’t quite place would all be held captive like they are. If Peter was lucid, he would stop struggling against the restraints across his chest and his arms, causing untold amounts of further internal damage from whatever the electricity had. 

But Peter wasn’t lucid, or aware, or in anything but an unimaginable amount of pain, eyes frantically searching for the source of his girlfriend’s voice only for the electric shock to come even quicker this time around. 

“Peter? Look at me, it’s okay. We’re-- we’re gonna get out, okay? You hear me?” Tony calls out, desperately wishing he could drown out the screams reverberating around his eardrums - only for the panic to settle in when Peter goes limp once more, taking notice of the blood beginning to leak out of his ears. 

Tony’s never been one to focus on the odds. He’s gotten out of more problems by the skin of his teeth time and time again. But then he stares at Peter who looks nearly lifeless, the two of them bound by vibranium and held captive by someone who seems to know _exactly_ what to do to torture them both.

For the first time, Tony begins to wonder if the odds won’t be in their favor. 

* * *

Everything inside of Peter is burning. 

It’s relentless, _agonizing_ \- like his insides are being set aflame and his organs are being liquified in real time. Peter can barely breathe, much less think - gurgling on something in the back of his throat that causes him to choke. 

Yet just as quickly as it starts, it stops again - Peter’s body acting of its own accord as his head falls back against the chair. 

He hears a voice somewhere in the distance, a frantic buzzing that _just_ needles at Peter. It’s familiar, but it’s not in pain -- not like Ned was in just moments before. 

He had to get to him, he had to save him but he couldn’t move or blink or even think - exhaustion immediately washing over him as he wheezes. 

It takes Peter a beat too long to recognize the voice, an indeterminable amount of time between recognizing it and being able to confirm it when he finally opens his eyes. Peter hears a loud crash in the distance but his eyes are focused on Tony, lazily blinking at him as Tony looks to where the boom came from.

“Tony?”

“Here! We’re in here!” Tony calls out before turning his attention back to Peter, the relief emanating off of him evident even if Peter can just barely pick up the panic still in his voice.

“It’s gonna be okay, kid. You’re gonna--”

“Tony, what happened?” Peter hears another vaguely familiar voice say, whatever Tony’s response is fading in the distance as Peter’s focus starts to wane.

“Hi Peter” the voice says, Peter blinking a few times only to lock onto Pepper’s face right in front of him. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Peter hears her say. 

He can’t bring himself to respond, his mouth and his mind working against him as he blearily blinks at Pepper. Pepper’s hands are gentle as she cradles his face, forcing Peter to look at her as she repeats, “It’s okay, Pete. We got you.”

Peter takes that as a signal that everything is okay, letting his eyes close again as the exhaustion takes over his senses. 

* * *

“Vibranium cuffs huh?” 

Tony snorts, Peter pointedly looking down at the bandages around Tony’s arms. It still hurts to talk, much less sit up but Peter feels a lot more aware than he had an hour ago— every minute passing feeling the drugs slowly leaving his system. 

Peter’s not sure how much time has passed, but he can tell from years of being in this exact scenario that Tony seems to need the reassurance that he’s okay just as Peter needs to know the same. 

“You knew you wouldn’t be able to get out of them,” Peter says, “Why’d you try?”

“Couldn’t let you be the only one try to play the hero,” Tony says a little too smoothly, Peter staring at him as the man waves his hand in the air only to wince at the motion. 

“Doesn’t sound like anyone was the hero but Pepper,” Peter replies, Tony smirking to himself as he brings his hand down and folds his hands across his lap. Peter can tell he’s tense and worried still, especially if he’s here with him in the middle of the night rather than with her. 

“She always is,” Tony says with a smile before it falls, nodding towards May who is sleeping on the futon on the other side of Peter’s bed. 

“She’s never gonna let me take you anywhere ever again.”

Peter laughs, before looking back to May - an undeniable sense of peace that she was okay washing over him. He knows now what he didn’t a few hours ago, that no one in his life was in any danger and that the screams were all illusions. Peter balls his hands into fists at thinking of _Beck_ still being out there - not when the warehouse they were in had been empty by the time Pepper arrived, save for the surveillance equipment. 

Whoever was running the show had been far, far away, a sign for Peter that it had to be Beck in some way - still finding new ways to torture him even all these years later. 

Peter sighs and chalks it up as a problem for another day, forcing himself to be content in the moment and the knowledge that she was okay as he turns back to Tony with a smirk.

“I’m nineteen, Tony. I don’t need permission to go anywhere now.” 

“And _that_ right there just shows how little you actually know about growing up,” Tony says with a huff, shaking his head and folding his arms across his chest now. “You think parents ever stop worrying about their kids?”

Peter doesn’t reply, holding Tony’s gaze for a beat. He knows now too that the only reason Tony’s bandaged up and bruised is because of how much he too struggled under the weight of vibranium cuffs, desperately trying to help Peter from the nightmares of hearing his loved ones voices in pain over and over again. 

Even if he had been fully aware and capable with his super strength, Peter knew was no match for vibranium. Tony was just a man yet there he was, in nearly as much need of medical attention as Peter was. 

“No,” Peter begins with a smile, holding Tony’s gaze as he smiles back. 

“I know they don’t.” 

  
  



End file.
